Depending on what news you read small business in the United States might be doing great or it may not. According to CNBC -small business confidence is at the lowest since February 2014. If you instead look at the survey conducted by Gallup at the beginning of this year for Wells Fargo, you will find that small business optimism jumped 13 points to reach the highest level in a year.
As a small business owner you have to decide for yourself – Bank statements handy — whether the economy and your optimism are at a good point at this time for you and your business. Your industry may be doing extremely well while others industries are collapsing, or you may be ready to hire employees this year independently of what the polls are telling you. You know your small business better than anyone, make decisions that benefit your business and those working for you. Everything else will fall into place.
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Small businesses in best financial shape in eight years
Most small business owners are feeling good about their financial situation, and that’s improved their outlook for the coming year.
That’s according to a quarterly survey of small business owners conducted in January by Gallup for Wells Fargo. This survey’s index of small business optimism jumped 13 points from November to 67, its highest level in a year.
These results run counter to what the National Federation of Independent Business found in its January survey of its members. NFIB’s small business indexfell last month to its lowest level in two years. The questions in each survey are slightly different, so that might account for some of the difference in the results.
The most noteworthy finding in the Wells Fargo survey was that two-thirds of small business owners rated their financial situation as good. That’s the highest percentage in eight years. More than 70 percent expect their financial situation will be good 12 months from now.
What small businesses can learn from a big business’s mistakes
It’s not hard to think of big businesses that have run into problems trying to grow in an economy that’s expanding in low single digits and where organic growth is very hard to generate. Mergers and acquisitions are increasingly becoming the best way to deliver the rapid growth that owners want and investors demand. Unfortunately merging and acquiring is a minefield – no matter how big or small the numbers involved might be.
The list of businesses that have overreached by borrowing money to buy a rival is long. Think of Hewlett Packard’s $5 billion write-off following its $11 billion acquisition of the software group Autonomy. Or Quaker’s disastrous takeover of Snapple, a deal which ended up costing Quaker $2 million for every day it owned the soft-drink group. Then there was the telecommunications giant Sprint, which ended up writing off a staggering $29.5 billion after buying Nextel. Its due diligence and haste to make the deal happen resulted in one of the biggest write-downs in corporate history.
Are the Conservatives losing the small business vote?
Government cuts alongside changes to tax returns, pensions and taxes on dividends is leading to a growing sense of outrage among entrepreneurs.
hen the first Conservative majority government in nearly 20 years came into power last May, there were high hopes among business owners. The Tories had assiduously courted support from SMEs during the election campaign, even launching a small business manifesto, pledging to cut red tape and review business rates.
With Cameron et al in Downing Street, many business owners breathed a sigh of relief. Among them was Richard Merrin, managing director of communications business Spreckley. “The biggest inhibitor over the past year was the prospect of the general election itself,” says Merrin. “It was no surprise to me that the very next day we saw an immediate uplift in new business inquiries and there is no doubt that the more business friendly Tories gaining an outright majority added to that confidence.”
